The claim: Elon Musk banned Taylor Swift’s X account
A Sept. 20 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes side-by-side photos of musician Taylor Swift and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, formerly Twitter.
“Elon Musk Bans Taylor Swift’s X Account, Causing Her to Lose Over 1 Million Followers and $72 Million,” reads the caption on the post.
It was shared more than 50 times in nine days. Other versions of the claim spread widely on Facebook, Instagram and X.
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Our rating: False
Swift’s X account remains active. There is no evidence her account was ever banned from the platform.
Claim comes amid wave of misinformation after Harris endorsement
Swift’s X account was active as of Sept. 30. There are no posts from Musk or articles from legitimate media outlets supporting the notion that her account was banned at any point.
The secondary claims are also baseless.
Contrary to the post’s claim that Swift lost 1 million followers after her supposed ban, live and archived versions of her account show she had 95.2 million followers on both Sept. 13 and Sept. 30. There is also no evidence to support the claim that she lost $72 million.
Though Musk didn’t ban Swift from X, he did use the platform to respond to her Sept. 10 endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Swift signed her endorsement statement with, “Childless Cat Lady” – a reference to comments Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, made in a 2021 interview.
“Fine Taylor – you win – I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” Musk said in a Sept. 11 X post.
While Swift herself hasn’t been banned, X temporarily banned searches for Swift in January after sexually explicit AI-generated images of the singer circulated on the platform.
Fact check: Claim that Jason Aldean halted collaboration with Taylor Swift is satire
USA TODAY has debunked other claims related to Swift’s endorsement, including false assertions that Swift said she regrets the statement, that she lost 17 million Instagram followers and that Coca-Cola ended its sponsorship deal with her after her public support of the Democratic ticket.
USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
PolitiFact, Reuters and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.
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